


One For Sorrow, Two For Joy

by greenbirds



Series: Lorena Joy Gibbs [2]
Category: NCIS, Stargate SG-1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-07
Updated: 2011-03-07
Packaged: 2017-10-16 04:21:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/168348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenbirds/pseuds/greenbirds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lorena Joy Gibbs never expected to find her way home by accident.</p><p>(This is an NCIS/Stargate genderflip AU; Clan Mitchell was created by synecdochic and is used under a creative commons attribution license).</p>
            </blockquote>





	One For Sorrow, Two For Joy

Now here’s the thing about cars, pretty much universally: if they’re going to break down, they inevitably decide to do so after hours on a Friday, outside of some nothing little town in the middle of nowhere with exactly one garage.

The team had been on its way back to D.C. (planning to fly out of Asheville; LJ would've preferred to fly out military but that would have required a trip to the other half of the damn state after too much time driving all over God's creation to begin with) after a week spent working a damn frustrating case in the wilds of North Carolina (if they were lucky, someone might be able to solve it sometime in the next fucking _century_ ; in the meantime LJ Gibbs was _really looking forward_ to explaining things to the director of NCIS when they got back), and everyone had been more than ready to get home to their respective hot showers and beds (Ziva was stewing quietly, McGee was trying -- unsuccessfully, with intermittent whining; both diNozzo and Ziva had already threatened him if he didn't stop complaining -- to sleep, and diNozzo had been bitching about when were they going to stop so he could take a pee and eat, which was no different than usual, really, except LJ was ten times more cranky and the coffee from that once place sixty miles or so back had been just godawful) when the car made an assortment of grinding, clunking noises and the engine died (fuck). LJ knew her way around a car, but this wasn't something she was gonna be able to fix with some spit and a little bit of electrical tape; this one was going to require professional attention, which she was pretty sure meant dinner at the Waffle House and at least an overnight stay in the Podunk Motel in the Middle of Nowhere, NC (just what they all needed, yet another night in a couple of tiny, cheap motel rooms, up in each other's business and snapping at one another).

But then diNozzo said he had an old friend -- practically family -- from around these parts, and made a phone call.

Within half an hour, there was a truck – newish, black Dodge crewcab, plenty of room for her and the team and their stuff -- coming on up the road. Guy that got out was an older man, introduced himself to the rest of the team as Roy, gave diNozzo a warm man-hug with all the back-slapping, apologized that his son was actually out of town on business, and Cameron (whoever that was; apparently another friend of diNozzo’s) was back in Colorado for the rest of the year so Tony and his friends were gonna have to deal with the ‘old folks’ this weekend, but Roy’d make a few phone calls and see if he couldn’t get their car seen to before Monday. He and diNozzo threw the team’s gear in the bed of the truck, and off they went back down the road in the dark. “Y’all missed supper,” Roy called over the back of the driver’s seat, “but don’t worry, there’s plenty leftover, and Momma’ll feed you up right.” Tony, who was riding shotgun, said something about cornbread with honey, and LJ could hear the grin in his voice.

And now damn if LJ isn't standing in the kitchen (a kitchen that smells of cornbread and peach pie and is so much like LJ's memories of her own Momma’s kitchen that her heart twists with longing) of a house she's known (if only from creased and faded black-and-white photographs) since childhood, and the woman who's busy hugging Tony "hello" and asking him why on Earth he wasn't at Christmas this year, because she knows Roy's son extended him the invitation and Tony better know he's always welcome in this house (Tony explains he was working a case), is Mrs. Mitchell, who is married to Everett Mitchell, Roy’s ( _Royfield’s_ ) brother. Everett Mitchell is LJ's uncle (he was six or seven in the pictures LJ's Momma gave her, once upon a time, but he's not a little boy anymore).

Through the screen door, LJ can hear the quiet buzz of conversation and the click of knitting needles, and she remembers her Momma saying how the menfolk and the womenfolk took up residence on opposite ends of the porch of an evening, and the gossip flowed round them like a river.

LJ (Lorena Joy, and her Momma had been named Evelyn Rae Mitchell) never thought she'd set foot in this house, never thought she'd see it in anything other than pictures and daydreams. Never thought she'd be face to face with family who didn't know she existed (and she will never forget her Momma calling herself “that Mitchell girl what probably no one talks about anymore”), and she has no idea what she's going to say. Mrs. Mitchell's studying her with her head tipped in a considering way, like she's just about to make the comment that LJ looks familiar, and LJ's got the strangest urge to duck behind Ziva, but her Momma always taught her to be polite, so she holds out her hand instead. "Mrs. Mitchell, I'm Lorena Joy Gibbs. This is my team -- Ziva David, Tim McGee. I guess you already know diNozzo. We appreciate your hospitality."

Mrs. Mitchell (call me Momma, everyone else around here does) waves a hand dismissively. “Ain’t nothin’, honey. We got plenty of room here, and plenty of food, and friends of Anthony's are always welcome here. Better’n a motel, that’s for darn sure.” Momma Mitchell sits them all at the kitchen table, lays out the plates (diNozzo starts to get up to help, which is damn interesting since LJ's Momma always told her helping was reserved for Family, not for guests, but Momma Mitchell waves him back into his chair, says he's had a long day), and brings over serving platters practically overflowing with food (more than enough for all of them to have seconds, and if this is the _leftovers,_ LJ can just imagine how much there must have been at suppertime). Chicken (which smells absolutely fucking amazing). Green beans (diNozzo unobtrusively leans over to Ziva and warns her about her about the ham fat; Southern cooking is full of landmines for vegetarians and those who keep Kosher). Biscuits (they look just like LJ's Momma's biscuits, which LJ used to eat three at a time). Gravy (there's _always_ gravy).

LJ's heart is pounding because when she was a little girl, she’d dreamed of this moment a thousand times (and the fact that it had been Gran'ma Hildy and not Momma Mitchell in her daydreams really, as her own Momma would have put it, don’t make no never mind). Momma Mitchell smiles at her, and the smile is thoughtful. “Lorena Joy, huh? Everett had an aunt same name as yours. Funny small world, ain’t it?”

“Yeah,” LJ agrees faintly, and her hands are numb as picks up her fork and looks away from Momma Mitchell's curious eyes (and LJ's own Momma had said Gran’ma Hildy had only ever let folks in the kitchen what she actually _liked_ and LJ can’t help but wonder if the same old rule still applies). “World’s a funny place.” She's been playing chicken with this house since the time she was eighteen and just about to ship out and drove up here, then decided at the last minute she didn’t want to know if the family wanted another stray, and now she’s come home (if this is home, this place in her Momma’s pictures) by _accident_. (Sometimes, LJ’s Momma had said, God likes to have a good laugh at Man’s expense, and ain’t nothin’ a body can do about it).

LJ’s Momma (her Momma, who deplored Damnyankee manners and was offended by at least three quarters of the population of Stillwater, Pennsylvania) always used to drive both her daughter and Jackson Gibbs half-crazy with her refusal to just plain _come out and ask_ whatever it was she wanted to know, rather than working around it at oblique angles for ten minutes, but right now (as LJ sits at the kitchen table, on a chair maybe her Momma sat in once upon a time, forking up chicken and green beans , and eating biscuits that taste just like her Momma’s and stirs memories of a a home she hasn’t had in longer than she cares to remember) LJ’s pretty damn grateful for Southern manners. Momma Mitchell’s still looking at her with a quiet sort of curiosity, but she’s asking diNozzo (Anthony) about Washington, and asking about friends LJ has never heard of, and asking McGee what he thinks of North Carolina, and Ziva about Israel, and respecting LJ’s silence.

“Don’t worry about the Boss, Momma,” diNozzo says with a cheerful grin. “She’s just not real talkative, ever.” When they get back to D.C., LJ and diNozzo are going to have (yet another) Little Talk about respect, but right now is not the time to even contemplate having that talk, because right now LJ's pretty sure she wants to thank diNozzo instead of clocking him for his lip like she ought to.

When the dinner dishes are cleared, Momma Mitchell brings out coffee and peach pie (and Lord God above, but it smells like LJ’s Momma’s pie, which she hasn’t tasted since the middle of ’69 when her Momma died, and she swallows against a sudden lump in her throat). Momma Mitchell must see something in LJ’s face, because she asks (quietly, gently), “You okay, honey?”

“Yeah,” LJ says, picking up her coffee cup and taking a long sip (the coffee, like everything else here, is delicious, though Momma Mitchell doesn’t brew it quite as dark as LJ likes), hoping it hides her expression. “Just tired. Been a long damn day. The pie’s delicious, by the way,” and that’s an understatement; it tastes like sunshine and memories and warm summer nights, and the homesickness washes over her like a wave.

“Well, you just sit there and relax then, Lorena Joy, you and Ziva and Timothy – or you’re welcome to go out on the porch with everyone else if you like.” Momma Mitchell holds out a dishtowel to diNozzo. “And _you_ , Anthony Daniel, are gonna help me with the dishes.” Beyond the murmur of conversation wafting in from the porch, LJ can hear shouts as the young’uns who are in residence play touch Frisbee, laughing and talking trash.

When LJ’s Momma had told her stories about the Clanstead (warm and loud and lovely and impossibly full of people), LJ had always figured it must be impossible to be lonely here. It’s not.

#

They finish their pie and coffee and adjourn to the porch, leaving Momma Mitchell to grill diNozzo ( _Anthony Daniel_ , and LJ is pretty sure that’s the meekest she’s ever seen diNozzo) in peace. LJ’s got no illusion about what Momma Mitchell wanted when she ordered Tony to help her with the dishes, and she’s almost positive that Tony is currently facing down one king hell of an interrogation, about his friends (colleagues) in general, and one Lorena Joy Gibbs (from Stillwater, Pennsylvania and it had taken all LJ had not to blurt out “Yankeeland” like her Momma always called it) in particular; LJ’d have to be a pretty damn shitty investigator to have missed the way Momma Mitchell’s been studying her this whole time. No help for it now but to get out of the way and let the grilling happen; diNozzo doesn’t know anything anyway (he’s always insisted -- when he thinks LJ is out of earshot -- that LJ is a functional mute), so it’s not like he can give away her secrets.

Some of the younger guys had talk McGee into playing Frisbee with them, and LJ’s always known McGee is a lot more athletic than he looks; the one team quickly comes to regret kindly “donating” McGee to the other side (and LJ Gibbs would never in a million years call the boy a geek). They try to talk Ziva into joining in as well, but she just smiles and thanks them and sits down on the steps, cradling the cup of coffee she brought out with her. Ziva’s silence is different than usual, pensive, a little sad, and LJ sinks down beside her (knowing full well that she's gonna regret spending too long sitting here, but oh well).

Ziva favors her boss with a small smile, but doesn’t say anything at all for a little while which is fine; neither Ziva nor LJ have ever been particularly fond of wasting words on nothing (Ziva’s always been restful, undemanding, unthreatened by silence). The fireflies float lazily above the lawn, and the guys laugh and cheer and tease McGee, and the Frisbee flies back and forth like the shuttle on a loom. On the porch behind Lorena Joy, the women have arranged themselves on a porch swing and a couple of chairs, and they knit and invoke names LJ has no reference for, talk about babies and husbands and kids away at college or serving overseas, and the trouble Henry Griffith’s youngest girl had gotten herself into.

Finally, Ziva sighs wistfully, sounding (the darkness hides her eyes) as lost and homesick as LJ feels. “In Israel, my family, at least on my mother’s side, is very large,” Ziva says, fidgeting a bit with her coffee cup (which is unusual; Ziva is usually stillness embodied). “Before I came here, my father and brothers and I used to spend Passover and the High Holidays with them, even after my mother passed away.”

“You don’t talk about it much, but you miss it, don’t you?” So easy to forget, sometimes, that Ziva is not the tough, cool exterior she presented to the world. So easy to forget that there are oceans and continents and Eli David (and Jackson Gibbs had been tough to live with, but he was not Ziva’s father) standing between her and going home (and Lorena Joy knows all about the old saying, but there’s a difference between home being different every time and going home not being possible at any time). In the Gulf, LJ had chafed at the wrongness of the desert and longed for the heavy deep green of the Pennsylvania woods; she wonders if Ziva pines for the olives and the cypresses of Israel in the same way, and imagines she probably does.

“I do miss it, sometimes.” Ziva says softly. “But I have learned to make a home wherever I can.”

They lapse into companionable (comfortable, easy) silence after that, at least until McGee comes panting from the game and throws himself down in the grass at their feet, laughing. Ziva ruffles his hair and teases him gently about playing touch-Frisbee in his business clothes (McGee assures her he can afford to buy new ones). Soon after, Tony emerges from the kitchen looking bemused (and tight-lipped about whatever Momma Mitchell asked him; LJ wonders what the woman threatened diNozzo with to keep him quiet because quiet is simply not something Tony _is_ by natural inclination) and sits down behind them on the porch.

LJ and her team rehash the case a little more after that, feeling no more enlightened than they had earlier that afternoon (the case was a bitch and a bugbear and the evidence was shit and there were no goddamn witnesses), and LJ wonders (briefly) if maybe they couldn’t just stay here forever and spare themselves the agony of having to explain this disaster of a case to Jenny Sheppard but then everyone’s getting up to head off to bed and Momma Mitchell wants to show them to their rooms (“Breakfast’s at seven, on account of some folks gotta go to work,” Momma Mitchell advises them).

#

Momma Mitchell puts LJ in the Peach Bedroom, on the ground floor of what the family calls the “new wing” of the house (which is really, if LJ's memory of what her Momma told her serves, about fifty years old, but it was new at one point, and the name apparently stuck). Momma Mitchell tells LJ they’re lucky it’s not Christmas or Thanksgiving or July 4 or Memorial Day, because the house isn’t anywhere near full and that means everyone gets his or her own room for the duration of their stay (maybe overnight, maybe the weekend; Roy’s trying to get hold of someone in the Family (Family with a capital ‘F’ and as far as LJ’s concerned it’s more like a small nation; she’d always figured her Momma had been exaggerating just a little, but apparently not) who’s a mechanic, but apparently Lyle’s wife says he’s out fishing and might not be home until Sunday (Lyle’s wife thinks one of the cousins who’s good with cars might be around, though, and Roy’ll try calling him in the morning).

The bedroom’s pretty, a little bit girly (not really LJ’s taste at all; she prefers plain and sleek and modern), but the double bed is comfortable and there's plenty enough room to spread out in, and the afghan is soft and warm and heavy in just the right way, and she wonders who made it and how many generations ago (Lorena Joy’s Momma had knitted almost compulsively, and she said most of the women in the Family did. LJ had learned a few stitches, but she’d been a lot more interested in cars and engines and catching frogs in the creek out back, so the most she’d ever made was a silly little misshapen potholder out of her Momma’s old scraps of yarn) and Momma Mitchell was right, this is a darn sight better than a motel. The house is quiet, settling with little creaks and moans, and the clock on the bedside table is ticking softly, and as exhausted as she is (she hadn’t been lying, not entirely, when she’d told Momma Mitchell it had been a long day), LJ Gibbs can’t sleep.

It’s almost five in the morning when LJ finally gives up on the notion of sleeping (her raveled sleeve of care isn’t gonna get any knitting at the moment, and she’s going to pay for it later, but insomnia’s insomnia and she may as well surrender to the inevitability of a white night) and slips out of bed, pulls on a robe (she’d just go ahead and dress, but she wants a shower first; the shower at the motel in the Middle of Nowhere had been terrible, but the shower in the full bath upstairs looks like heaven). The floor is cool and solid under her bare feet as she pads out into the hallway, and no one seems to be stirring abroad just yet. Down the hall, she can hear diNozzo snoring (he always denies it, and one of these days she’s going to get a recording). Water out of the kitchen tap (cold and clear, and Momma Mitchell had shown her where the glasses were last night, just in case she might want somethin’ in the middle of the night), and the living room (the one Momma Mitchell called the Back Parlor when she gave them the five-cent tour) seems like a logical destination.

The walls are lined with pictures that probably stretch back a century, children and teenagers and old folks and men and women LJ (Lorena Joy, and it had touched something deep inside her to hear Momma Mitchell call her by her Christian name, with her Momma’s accent and that soft smile) doesn’t recognize, a picture of Gran’ma Hildy with her arm around Gran’pa Elias, a picture of diNozzo (younger, maybe in his early 20s, still a faint dusting of acne on his forehead) standing next to a grinning, brown-haired young man she doesn’t recognize, though diNozzo’s friend has the look of the Mitchells. Maybe Roy’s son. But it’s the picture hanging on the left side of the fireplace (eight by ten, black and white, in an unevenly-finished frame that looks like it had maybe been someone’s woodshop project in junior high, and doubtless the recipient of the gift had reacted with great enthusiasm) that draws her eye. Six children (five boys and a girl, ranging in age from maybe two or three to late teens), all wearing overalls, standing hand-in hand on the porch of this selfsame house, grinning. She could name these children from memory by the time she was four years old. Clayton Elias. George Duquense. Royfield Jefferson. Bayliss Kimbrel. Everett Raymond. Between Roy and Bayliss, Evelyn Rae (Evelyn Rae, who was LJ’s Momma, here in this house she had left behind for good). LJ Gibbs carries the picture’s twin in her wallet (always remember who you are, her Momma had said).

Evelyn Rae is thirteen, maybe fourteen in the picture, a pretty blonde girl with a sprinkling of freckles across her face, just barely starting to curve in the luscious way that had always drawn men’s eyes to LJ’s Momma without their conscious volition (or had right up until six months before she died, when she had been thin and brittle and quiet). In the picture, she is frozen in time, forever smiling, and LJ reaches out, lays her fingertips against the cool glass that covers her Momma’s face .

She doesn’t hear Momma Mitchell come in (maybe it’s that she’s so engrossed in her own thoughts, maybe it’s just that Momma Mitchell can be damn quiet when she wants to be). LJ jumps at the sound of Momma Mitchell’s voice, color rising to her cheeks. “Early morning?” Momma Mitchell asks, her voice lowered in deference to the folks in the house who are still sleeping (“It’ll get real noisy around here right about six fifteen, so just as well you didn't try to sleep in”).

“Uh,” LJ stammers, still blushing (and what the hell is wrong with her? Last time she blushed she thinks was boot camp, but she feels like a kid caught with her finger in the Christmas pie). “Late night,” she corrects. “Couldn’t sleep. Gonna regret that this afternoon, I’m sure.”

She half-expects Momma Mitchell to comment that LJ’s jumpy as a wet cat in a lightning storm (it had been her own Momma’s favorite phrase), but all Momma Mitchell does is step a little closer. “That’s my husband – he’s the little bitty one, baby of the family – and his brothers and older sister.”

LJ smiles while Momma Mitchell names them each in turn, tells her a little of their lives. Everett had been in the Air Force right up until he lost his legs in the line of duty, and when he’d come back home he and Bayliss and Roy had started a woodcraft business that they insisted to all and sundry was “just a hobby” but really was the talk of the county, and if anyone wanted something from them they better get on the waiting list now, because it was almost a year long (the picture frame had apparently been a school project of Bayliss’s; he has, Momma Mitchell notes with a snort, gotten a whole lot better since then). Clayton had died in Vietnam (and that was sometimes the price of service. LJ tells Momma Mitchell she’d been a Marine before she was a federal agent, and Momma Mitchell favors her with a warm smile). George is still alive, loves to fish, and one of his daughters has just given him his fourth grandbaby, so he's absolutely beside himself right now. “Now Evelyn Rae,” Momma Mitchell says, “That’s a sad story, right there. I remember her a little bit; she babysat me and my brothers sometimes when we was little.”

“What happened?” LJ asks, and she feels herself going still (like the Israelites waiting for Moses to come home from the Mount; her Momma had promised to tell her when she was older, explain why she’d gotten on an ol’ Greyhound bus and gone to Yankeeland to live with the Damnyankees and never, ever looked back, but her Momma had died in ’69, and apparently LJ’s eleven years weren’t enough yet to count as ‘older.’).

Momma Mitchell shakes her head, frowning a little. “Don’t rightly know all the details. Everett and I were both pretty small when it happened, but I know Evelyn Rae didn’t get on with Elias none, nor her Momma Hildy; just teenage stuff I think, though I guess she was in trouble a lot at school. One night in ’55, I guess she an’ Elias had some kind of argument, no idea what it was about, and Evelyn Rae got so mad she burned down one of the sheds an’ run off in the middle of the night. Never wrote, never came home. No idea what happened to her. Her daddy practically went crazy looking for her, those first three years, and Hildy was still grievin’ her little girl when she died back in ’79.”

(“I’m probably that Mitchell girl what no one talks about anymore,” LJ’s Momma had said). LJ’s throat is uncomfortably tight, and she can feel the tears prickling in the corners of her eyes, threatening to spill over. Can’t remember the last time she cried, and she scrubs a hand across her face, because she’s not dammit gonna start right now in front of this woman who is family-and-a-stranger, not over some story that was over long before LJ was born.

“You okay, honey? Didn’t mean to upset you, tellin' you this sorrowful story before coffee's even on." Momma Mitchell’s got a hand on her arm, and is looking into her face, and for a second she sounds just like LJ’s Momma, and LJ feels a tear get loose and slide down her cheek (and goddammit she does not want to fucking cry. Not here, not now, not over this ancient history, not ever).

LJ knows she should be telling Momma Mitchell that she’s okay, just overtired, and that it really is a sad story and she feels bad for Everett, never knowing where his big sister’d gone, but those aren’t the words that come spilling out of her mouth, and her voice is (shamefully) thick with unshed tears.

“You asked me about my name last night,” LJ says, and it’s all she can do to keep her voice from shaking. “I’m named after my Momma’s Aunt Lorena, or at least that’s what she told me.” And Momma Mitchell is staring at her with dawning realization, or maybe just confirmation of suspicions she’s harbored since last night, and if LJ stops now she’s never gonna start again, so she presses on. “I was born in Stillwater, Pennsylvania, but my Momma’s name was Evelyn Rae Mitchell and she said she had people in Buncombe County, North Carolina. She passed back in ’69, when I was eleven. I have a copy of this picture in my wallet. My Momma left it to me.”

And then Momma Mitchell’s arms are around her (she smells of lavender and cinnamon) and Momma Mitchell's whispering nonsense into her hair as LJ (Lorena Joy, and her Momma was a Mitchell) helplessly weeps stormy tears (tears she doesn’t want, didn’t know she was keeping, but can’t send away now that they’re here) into Momma Mitchell's shoulder.

#

Nothing feels quite real as LJ sits at the kitchen table twenty minutes later (her Momma told her about this table, about family and adopted family and Gran’ma Hildy’s Red Velvet cake and sitting here on long September afternoons doing homework while her baby brothers teased her) with her hands wrapped around a big mug of coffee and the early morning sun streaming in all golden. Last night, the kitchen had been dim and exhaustion had blunted any desire LJ might have felt to study the kitchen table her Momma had always talked about, but in the morning light, it's gorgeous. The wood is deep gold and scarred in a few places by age and use and silverware held in tiny, clumsy hands,and LJ can practically feel the history in it (back in D.C., she’s got a kitchen table from Ethan Allen that she almost never sits at and it’s only three years old).

Momma Mitchell’s at the stove frying up bacon and sausage and French toast (homemade bread of course; nothing else’ll do if a body wants it to taste right, and LJ’s Momma said the same damn thing once). Looks like enough to feed a small army, and LJ says as much, but Momma Mitchell laughs and said naw, this morning it's gonna be a small breakfast; summer’s over and a lot of people who would’ve been here a month ago aren’t now and the house still seems awful quiet and empty, but it’ll be full up again in a few months for the holidays.

LJ’s eyes are aching and her head’s still pounding from the unaccustomed rush of tears (and Momma Mitchell brought her a couple aspirin with her coffee and squeezed her shoulder sympathetically, and that had almost set LJ back to crying again, to which Momma Mitchell said “Naw, naw,” and told her this was happy news, having another family member, and Lorena Joy would think so too once the shock had passed). She was half-afraid Momma Mitchell was going to just up and make a huge announcement at breakfast (and LJ could just imagine the looks on her team’s faces, and Tony would be demanding “Hey, Boss, how come you never tell us anything?” but Momma Mitchell just laughed gently and said that LJ looked like the sort who didn’t appreciate being the center of attention, and of course they’d handle this quietly, and together.

She hears the thump of feet on the stairs, and not long after, an older man wearing a worn sweater with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows and a pair of jeans and mismatched socks emerges into the kitchen, smiling. There are laugh lines around the corners of his eyes, and he looks like the sort of man who spends a lot of time outdoors and thinks a lot, and his smile is infectious. He greets Momma Mitchell by kissing the top of her head chastely, and leaning over her shoulder to sniff at what’s in the skillet. Momma Mitchell swats him with a kitchen towel and LJ can’t help but laugh.

The man turns around and studies her curiously, wearing a smile and a look of puzzled almost-recognition. “You didn’t tell me there were more houseguests, Sara Eileen,” he says in tones of mock-chastisement, and his tone is merry, his diction precise. “Of course,” he adds, “there are always houseguests beyond numbering in this house, so maybe I lost track,” and he winks (winks!) at LJ.

“Oh good Lord, where are my manners? You were in Asheville last night, weren't you? Of course you didn't know we've got more guests." And Momma Mitchell sounds a little embarrassed as she sets the spatula aside and nudges down the heat on the burner. “LJ, this is Alvin deSaussure, my brother. Al, this is Lorena Joy Gibbs,” and LJ can read the question Momma Mitchell’s eyes are asking loud and clear, and she nods faintly. May as well; sometimes there’s no help for it but to rip the Band-Aid right off. “As it turns out, LJ is Evelyn Rae’s girl. Been livin’ in D.C., practically right under our noses.” Momma Mitchell sees Al opening his mouth to ask a question – or more likely many questions -- and stops him short. “Evenlyn Rae passed on back in ’69, so don’t go badgering the poor girl,” and this the first time in a long time LJ’s been called a girl, and by a woman who probably doesn’t have too many years on her, either (after all, Everett Mitchell was the baby of the family), “with too many questions about her Momma.”

Al looks thunderstruck for a moment, but he pulls himself back together quickly, and studies LJ with interest. “Certainly no genetic tests required to prove this one’s Family. She favors Hildy pretty strongly, doesn’t she?” and he’s teasing, but his eyes are smiling at LJ, inviting her to share the joke, and she can feel a little bubble of warmth taking root somewhere in her chest and can’t help but answer his grin with a tiny one of her own.

Alvin (might as well call me Uncle Al, seeing as how you’re Family and all) is an anthropologist (tenured professor, Near East archaeology) and he’s on sabbatical this semester, writing a book (and now that there’s the internet, he can write a book from pretty much anywhere and since his sister's cooking is better than his, he figured he’d come stay here for a few months). LJ finds herself warming to him almost instantly; he reminds her a bit of a Southern version of Duckie. He swipes a piece of French toast off the platter (Momma Mitchell slaps his hand absentmindedly and he cheerfully ignores her), breaks it in half, and offers half to LJ. She’s surprised to realize she’s hungry. Uncle Al asks her (curiosity, not judgment) how she came to sound like such a Damnyankee, and LJ tells him she was born and raised in Pennsylvania. He says he has colleagues back at school who could listen to LJ talk for a couple of minutes and tell her exactly where she’d been born and raised, and where her parents had come from. She laughs and says she’ll believe it when she sees it.

LJ gets up and goes to hold a big platter that Momma Mitchell piles high with sausage and bacon (and LJ’s pretty sure the last time she saw this much food in one place, it was in the Mess Hall when she was still in the Marines). Her Momma told her that chores and helping were for Family, not for guests, and the little bubble of warmth grows a little bigger.

Around the three of them, the house stirs to life. LJ can hear footsteps on the landings, doors opening, doors closing, water rushing through pipes, children’s voices. A few minutes later people start tricking down from upstairs and in from outside; some she remembers from last night, some she doesn’t recognize. A young woman named Cindy Lou helps Momma Mitchell lay out butter and syrup and honey and pitchers of orange juice and milk in the dining room (this crowd won't all fit around the kitchen table, and Momma Mitchell said this was a _small_ breakfast), and Cindy Lou smiles at LJ but there is a weight of unimaginable grief in her eyes, and LJ wonders who she lost. Roy drifts in and makes a beeline for the coffee pot. Everett and Bayliss (and LJ can see the distant echoes of the children in the photograph in their faces) come in not long after. Last night when she saw him he was sitting so she didn't pay much attention, but this morning Lorena Joy can't help but notice Everett's elbow canes and sometimes it seems unfair that service can come with such a damnably high price; if the world were just (though LJ knows better than most that it isn't), it would only come with rewards. Everett stops to kiss Momma Mitchell good morning, and Momma Mitchell smiles like a sunrise. The kitchen fills up with noise and laughter and early-morning crankiness, and in its own way, it’s as warm and soft and comforting-heavy as the afghan on her bed last night.

Over the heads of a couple of blonde-haired boys that LJ guesses are probably around twelve and are negotiating for extra sausage please, Aunt Momma, Momma Mitchell catches Lorena Joy’s eyes and smiles wide and the message is clear: _this is your family now._

#

Breakfast is a boisterous affair, full of laughing and talking and the passing of butter and syrup and the din of conversation just about drowns out the clink of silverware. Uncle Al is thrilled to see diNozzo (he calls him Tony), says he’d missed the infamous diNozzo charm at Christmas; diNozzo asks about a girl named Theodosia, and Uncle Al tells him no, she’s still too young for him and anyway, he’s not in the habit of letting his finest Ph.D. students date cads, even handsome successful ones. Tony says to make sure to let him know when she graduates, and they both laugh. Apparently this is an old joke. LJ feels a momentary stab of envy that Tony has belonged to this family (her family) for years longer than she has, but for once he is smiling without sharp hard edges and she cannot begrudge him that.

McGee looks a tad shocked to see his boss still in her pajamas in a strange house (or at least she hopes it’s that and not that her eyes are still bloodshot; they’d been awful red when she’d gone into the bathroom earlier to scrub away the tear streaks). Whatever McGee might be about to say, he’s distracted by the teasing of two of his Frisbee teammates from the night before (Skipper and Spencer, both military, both home on leave, identical twins – Momma Mitchell calls them the Plague of Frogs – and LJ can’t for the life of her tell them apart; she figures like everything else it’s an acquired skill). DiNozzo looks at LJ shrewdly for a moment (what the hell did Momma Mitchell ask him last night?), all the little wheels turning in his head and seems to arrive at a decision. Grinning and gesturing at McGee, he points out to his tablemates that they’re in the presence of a famous mystery writer.

Their end of the long table erupts in startled exclamations of “ _You’re_ Thom E. Gemcity?” and demands for autographs and questions about his last book and when the next one is going to be out, and McGee is blushing, and _absolutely no one_ (not the Mitchells, not Tim McGee) is paying a damn bit of attention to Lorena Joy Gibbs in her pajamas (and really, that Talk about respect is gonna be very much in order when they get home; either that or giving diNozzo his own damn team at some point in the near future). (“Nicely played,” Uncle Al murmurs to diNozzo, and then he smiles – again; the man always seems to be smiling – at LJ).

Beside Lorena Joy, Ziva is studiously applying herself to her French toast and fruit, eyes downcast (LJ thinks) so that no one will see the ache in them. (No man is an island, her Momma had said, and Ziva, LJ's thought for a long time, is very much alone). DiNozzo glances at Ziva, starts to open his mouth, and shuts it again (maybe weighing the merits of attempting to tease her out of her dark mood – diNozzo’s solution to pretty much everything is to play the clown until someone either laughs or slaps him; either way the mood is broken – and then thinking better of the notion; diNozzo’s hardly stupid, no matter what he wants people to think).

LJ liked Uncle Al pretty much from the moment she met him (unusual, but not unheard-of; her friendship with Jenny Sheppard had begun much the same way once upon a time in Russia), but what he does next earns him a more-or-less permanent place on Lorena Joy’s Good List (and diNozzo would be more than happy to point out to pretty damn near anyone who wanted to ask that it’s a very short list) -- he looks at Ziva and says something to her in Hebrew (and really, given his specialty, LJ really shouldn’t be surprised that Alvin deSaussure speaks Hebrew; he probably also speaks Arabic and Farsi and God only knows what else). Whatever it is that he says, Uncle Al’s tone is light, and Ziva looks momentarily startled, then laughs (and it’s an honest, open laugh; the kind of laugh LJ’s only heard maybe twice from Ziva in all the time she’s known her, and Ziva’s smiling).

Momma Mitchell is as good as her word (not that LJ expected any different), and breakfast passes with a complete absence of grand announcements. Ziva and Uncle Al chatter animatedly in Hebrew (with periodic digressions into English for the purposes of teasing diNozzo, who puts up with it gallantly and with a cheerful good nature that belies his distressed expression; his relief at seeing Ziva smiling is almost palpable). Poor McGee finally gets his little flock of admirers to stop pestering him long enough to take a few bites of his (cold) French toast and drink a little coffee, but it’s equally clear that he’s just eating up the experience of having a small crowd hanging on his every word. Lorena Joy Gibbs gets to eat her breakfast in (relative, but blessed nonetheless) peace.

LJ’s looking forward to a long hot shower and maybe an afternoon spent sitting on the porch in the autumn sunshine (been a long damn time since she’s had a chance to take a break; it’s been case upon case upon case back in D.C., and she may as well take advantage of the enforced vacation, because it’s not like climbing the walls is gonna make the car get fixed any faster) when she takes her dishes into the kitchen, but Momma Mitchell puts a hand on LJ’s arm when she turns to leave. “Lorena Joy, sweetheart, would you mind waiting here just a few before you run off to whatever?”

LJ shrugs, pours herself another mug of coffee from the coffee pot (not anywhere near strong enough, which is a relief; if the coffee was perfect, she’d be pretty goddamn sure this was just a dream and she was just going to wake up any second now in a godawful bed with scratchy sheets at the Podunk Motel), and settles herself back in her spot at the kitchen table. She’s in no hurry, and the exhaustion born of a sleepless night and the morning’s tears is beginning to settle in her bones. “Sure. You mind me asking why?”

Momma Mitchell contemplates her for a long moment (like she’s trying to decide whether LJ might be going to bolt like a skittish horse; LJ’s Momma used to get the same look right before she told her daughter that Grandfather Gibbs – awful, judgmental old man – was gonna come over for Sunday dinner and Lorena Joy might oughta wear a dress). LJ’s fingers tighten on her coffee mug, but she holds herself still and waits. “The younger boys – especially Bayliss – were close to Evelyn Rae. Momma Hildy once told me it like to’ve killed Bay when she run off and didn’t come back. I know you didn’t want an announcement, honey, but I really think at least the boys oughta know.”

She remembers her Momma’s stories about Bayliss (Bay; the boy she called her “oldest little brother”), quiet and serious and strong as an ox but sensitive under all that toughness; he’d once beaten up a couple of boys he’d caught tormenting a mutt dog over on the neighbor’s property (and her voice had swelled with pride when she’d told little LJ that story; one of the qualities her Momma’d always prized in people was defending the innocent). Evelyn Rae’d loved all of her brothers, and doted on the little ones, but LJ always knew her Momma loved Bayliss best of all of them.

And Momma Mitchell is absolutely right for looking at at LJ like she might bolt; only thing keeping LJ rooted to that kitchen chair is years upon years of Marine discipline and all of her own Momma’s lectures about guest-manners and she hopes like hell that the panic that’s twisting in her gut doesn’t show on her face (hopes like hell that Momma Mitchell can’t hear how hard her heart is pounding). “I …” and LJ’s never much liked words to begin with; getting them out when she’s not sure what’s going on in her own head is next to fucking impossible. “I’m not my Momma,” she finally manages to say. “She passed when I was eleven. I was too young to really know her.” The lump’s back in her throat, and this is nothing like she imagined it would be (she’d always figured on either miserable because they’d rejected her, or happy because they hadn’t; she’d never figured on these overwhelming waves of sadness mixed in with the joy of finding her family at last; it was supposed to be black or white, one or the other, but suddenly LJ misses her Momma more than she has in years).

“No,” Momma Mitchell agrees, “you’re not your Momma, and no one’s gonna expect you to be. But you’re proof she didn’t just vanish into nothin’, is what you are. And you’re Family, and that means a hell of a lot around here.” Her voice is gentle but not pitying, and she’s as matter-of-fact as if she deals with long-lost family members accidentally wandering into her kitchen on a daily basis (and maybe she does; not like LJ has spent enough time here to know one way or another). This woman could run NCIS with one hand tied behind her back and still have attention to spare for other things.

LJ stares at her coffee and her heart flutters in her chest (been a long damn time since that’s happened, for sure), but in the end she can’t help but agree; if there’s nothing else she’s learned from her work (nothing else she’s learned from the endless rolls of victims’ families she’s dealt with over the years), it’s that human beings crave closure, and she owes the Mitchells at least that much.

The boys (Roy, Everett, Bayliss, and they're not really boys anymore but LJ suspects Momma Mitchell will call them that when they're eighty) troop back into the kitchen, look curiously from LJ to Momma Mitchell and back again. Momma Mitchell meets LJ's eyes and holds them (just as well, because LJ's pretty damn sure that if she spends too much time looking back at the boys, she _is_ gonna bolt, Mitchell or no, _Marine_ or no). Momma Mitchell handles it gracefully, practically, simply. No Hallmark Channel drama (thank fuck), just the simple truth. Lorena Joy Gibbs is Evelyn Rae's girl, and she's come home at last.

Roy and Everett embrace LJ, ask her a few questions (about Stillwater, about her father, about what she knows of how and why her Momma came to be there, which isn’t much), then welcome her to the Family and retreat to the woodshop, and LJ's spent enough time learning how to read people to know that they’re not disinterested, and they’re not trying to avoid her: they’re trying to give her and Bayliss some privacy (Momma Mitchell retreats too, ostensibly to wrangle some of the kids who are getting up to God-knows-what in the front yard).

Bayliss is a big man with smile lines etched in his face, and his eyes are gentle (and right now sad, a little lost). His head tips to the side as he studies LJ quietly (and she’d bet good money just based on watching him that while LJ’s Momma had been garrulous and full of laughter, LJ and Bayliss are a lot alike in the way they feel about too much talking, so she just waits). Finally he clears his throat and meets her eyes. What she asks is-and-isn’t what she was expecting.

“Was she happy, Lorena Joy?” and his voice is full of wistful longing. Doesn’t want to know why Evelyn Rae never came home, doesn't want to know what her life was like; just wants to know that his big sister, in the end, had been all right.

LJ's Momma was a long way from home and LJ's Momma missed her family like burning, and she was too afraid (of what exactly, she never said and LJ isn't sure if Evelyn Rae even knew herself) to go home and she died way too young, but she and Jackson Gibbs loved each other about as much as it was possible for two people to love one another even when they were feuding, and she called LJ all she’d ever wanted out of life, and she sang when she hung out the washing and laughed so often that it’s always the first thing LJ remembers about her. “Yeah,” she says, and she can hear the tears crowding her throat again and this time she really doesn’t care. “Yeah, I think she really was.”

Bayliss’s hug is gentle, and he smells nice, sawdust and Dial Soap and something she can’t quite identify, and he presses his face against the top of her head and she thinks he’s crying too and it doesn’t really matter. She’s not quite sure how long they stay that way, but he finally hugs her a little tighter and says, “I’m glad you finally found your way home, Lorena Joy,” and he scrubs at his face a little and smiles at her (and there is so much newfound ease in that smile it breaks her heart) and then he’s out the kitchen door and off to the woodshop to join his brothers.

Momma Mitchell comes back into the kitchen to finish the dishes, and wordlessly she holds out the drying towel to LJ. Whatever she sees in LJ’s face, she smiles a little and nods, but doesn’t say anything. They make short work of the washing up.

The car repairs aren't finished until Sunday afternoon, but no one really complains, not even diNozzo. Skipper and Spencer keep McGee entertained and keep all of his fans (one of whom is an ancient woman everyone calls Great-Aunt Lavvy, and if it’s the same Lavinia LJ’s Momma talked about, she must be close to a hundred years old but she’s sharp as can be and has a wicked sense of humor) from pestering McGee senseless. Uncle Al and Ziva play chess and trade what LJ assumes are jokes in Hebrew; Uncle Al and Ziva spend most of the rest of the weekend laughing together. DiNozzo settles into the bosom of Family life like he’s spent his entire life there (and maybe he has; LJ’s never really talked personal stuff with her team). LJ (Lorena Joy, and she knows she smiles every time she hears that name on another pair of lips, and her team looks confused because she’s never once allowed them to call her by her Christian name) walks and thinks and helps Momma Mitchell in the kitchen (and she’s never been much of a cook, but she can follow directions and stirring the cornbread isn’t hard anyway).

By the time the car's fixed and packed up and they’re ready to leave, her team is all smiles and looks like they’ve just spent a week on vacation, not a weekend stuck in an unfamiliar house halfway in between Hither and Yon. Momma Mitchell loads them down with enough food to see them through the next Ice Age, including a pie for each of them (Tony says that he should get two, since he missed getting one at Christmas, and Momma Mitchell tells him to mind his manners or she’ll swat him). LJ is given strict instructions that she is to be at the Clanstead for Thanksgiving, come Hell or high water (unless of course she’s working a case; duty, of course takes precedence), and diNozzo (Anthony Daniel) is instructed to make sure that LJ doesn’t wiggle out of the invitation at the last second (and it seems damn unfair that Momma Mitchell’s already got her figured out so well). LJ thinks, given the uncharacteristic lightness she sees in Ziva’s eyes, that she might bring Ziva too.

Just as she’s climbing into the car, Bayliss (Uncle Bay) emerges from the woodshop with something big and cloth-wrapped in his hands. It’s heavy when he hands it to LJ, but all he says is, “I made it for Evelyn Rae when I thought she was still gonna come back. Kept up with it even when I realized she wasn’t. Only right that it go to you now.” He hugs her quickly and tells her he’ll see her at Thanksgiving. LJ smiles and says she’s looking forward to it. McGee looks at her like she’s grown a second head.

This time, the drive into Asheville is uneventful, and the flight home is mercifully short. LJ would almost accuse Momma Mitchell of working some kind of magic, but the team runs into the usual fuckton of traffic leaving National (and it's back, LJ supposes, somewhat regretfully, to business as usual).

LJ’s at home before she gets a chance to open Bayliss’s package, and when she does her breath catches in her throat. It’s a big maple box, simple and beautifully made (the hinges are brass and the joinery is exquisite, the wood so finely finished that it seems to glow from within). It’s filled with hundreds of pictures, stretching back for more than fifty years (pictures of all the things Evelyn Rae missed while she was away). Weddings. Hildy’s and Elias’s birthday cakes, each year with more candles, their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Christmas after Christmas after Christmas, and for every year (and the years are carefully scribed on the back of every photograph, stretching back to 1955 when Evelyn Rae got on her ol’ Greyhound bus bound for Yankeeland) a picture of the entire family standing on the front porch of the Clanstead. Before her eyes babes in arms become children become soldiers in uniform become fathers and mothers with babies of their own. The family grows. In this year’s picture, there almost isn’t enough room on the porch to hold the entire family.

LJ ( _Lorena Joy_ ) stands up slowly, goes into her bedroom, and pulls a little metal box of black-and-white photographs out of the top drawer of her dresser. Photos of Evelyn Rae and her brothers, of Gran’pa Elias and Gran’ma Hildy, of the Clanstead (her Momma had prized these pictures above diamonds, and LJ knew the stories they told by heart long before her Momma had died). Smiling, she puts the pictures (worn and creased and faded and much-loved) in Bayliss’s box, and closes the lid gently, smiling. “Now you’re home, Momma,” she whispers, and she knows she should feel silly for it, but she doesn’t.

That night, LJ calls Momma Mitchell and lets her know they made it home safe.


End file.
